Xbox One S All-Digital Edition Officially Announced, Launches May 7 for $249 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 04 May 2019 / 3,998 Views
Following rumors, Microsoft has officially announced the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition. The console will launch on May 7 for $249.99 at the Microsoft Store, as well as select retailers including Walmart, Best Buy and Amazon.
The price is $50 less than the standard price of the Xbox One S and Microsoft plans to keep the All-Digital Edition at least $50 cheaper going forward.
The Xbox One S All-Digital Edition includes three digital games - Minecraft, Forza Horizon 3 and Sea of Thieves.
Read the announcement post below:
At Xbox, we’re inspired by gamers – they’re at the center of everything we do. We’re constantly listening to your feedback and looking for new ways to provide the best value and choice in gaming. Today, we’re excited to announce a new choice we’re bringing to gamers – the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition.
Consumer appetite for digital content and experiences are stronger today than ever before. Gaming and technology have changed quite a bit since the first Xbox debuted in 2001. During this time, we’ve seen a digital transformation across gaming, music, TV and movies. And closer to home, the success of Xbox Game Pass, which gives members access to over 100 great games, is just another example of how consumers today have grown to expect great digital content. The Xbox One S All-Digital Edition was created for those who prefer to find and play their games digitally and are looking for the most affordable way to play Xbox games.
The Xbox One S All-Digital Edition comes bundled with three of our most compelling and popular games – Minecraft, Forza Horizon 3and Sea of Thieves. These critically acclaimed titles are sure to offer something for everyone in the family to enjoy.
Those new players joining us can get a head start on their digital collections and discover their next favorite game through Xbox Game Pass. If you haven’t tried Xbox Game Pass yet, the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition comes with a special offer to get started with access to over 100 great games, and with new games being added all the time there will always be something new to queue in your digital library. Cord cutters will enjoy watching 4K HDR entertainment with Netflix, Amazon and more, and thousands of Xbox One games are available from the Microsoft Store digitally.
We realize price plays an important role in providing the opportunity to make console gaming more accessible to more gamers around the world. Available for pre-order today at $249.99 USD, the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition is $50 USD less than Xbox One S, and we expect to maintain at least that price difference between the two consoles going forward.
You can pick up the disc-free Xbox One S All-Digital Edition at your local Microsoft Store or online, as well as select retailers worldwide including Walmart, Best Buy and Amazon.com beginning May 7.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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What sucks about this is there is no real benefit of buying this Xbox. Its still expensive, no technical improvements, seems roughly the same size, its basically the same X1S but missing a big feature. MS is taking no risk with this, just a pointless option for consumers. On a side note, I'm using Xbox One X exclusively at this point, I actually own two thanks to big discounts found online. I'd actually like to see MS move away from the X1S entirely and focus on making the X1X cheaper.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to get the less expensive S model and just not use the disc drive? Why does this thing exist.
Gamer here, I am still trying to figure out how backwards compatibility works on this unit...[calling customer service support line in a moment.]
Not really since most of the game that are backwards compatible are available digital. Also a good chunk of the backwards compatible titles where never available in physical format to begin with since a lot of them are X Box live arcade games.
This will flop terribly!
Doubt it. Way more people only get their games digital now then when the generation started. Also if its off to a slow start they will more then likely cut the price by $50. The PSP Go on the other hand flopped terrible since most people still just bought their games physically and it didn't have enough storage space and extra storage wasn't that cheap either. Plus a lot of PSP games wheren't available digitally.
Read Bandorr's comment. The digital-only XB1 is more expensive than the model with a disc drive.
You can still go all digital without paying more.
Its only more expensive because the X1 with the disc drive is constantly on sale all the time but the list price for the X1 S with a disc price and a 1TB HDD is $299.99. Also I say it again if this doesn't sell well it will be discounted by at least $50 pretty quickly.
Honestly have no idea who the target audience is with this.
The saddest thing is that this mean there is no price cut for the regular X1S anytime soon. I really do not understand MS strategy here. Maybe they are already content with the amount of units they are selling? It gotta be it because I don´t see any other explanation.
Not nearly cheap enough and offers nothing of value to someone like me who prefers a game collection of discs.
I cannot believe Microsoft at the moment. They get rid of a 4K Blu Ray drive, the ability to play your existing disc based games and to swap games with your friends and charge $249 when you can get a normal S for about $220-$230.
I have no words.....
If this thing was $149 with a year of game pass and Xbox live it would have had a chance.
Also this system has no means to allow backwards compatibility
So, it's official. I eagerly anticipate word of this thing's sales performance. Throwing my hat into the ring as a doubter. There's no upshot. I'm thinking this will be a temporary price. Very temporary.
This price has to be where it's at to grab the hardcore Xbox fan market. That's quite the turnaround in your purchasing habits. I like both physical, and some games are digital-only. Still prefer physical, but essentially buy games at around a 60/40 split now physical-digital split. Although I spend much more money, and buy "bigger" games physical.
Well this flopping hard will help next gen keep being disc based =] at least PS5 we know will.
Pathetic. It should be $99.
I can't imagine this will sell much at this price. It will be interesting to see how aggressive they get with discounts during the holidays. If it is always going to be $50 below the S, that will likely mean $99-$149 when the big sales hit. At $149, I can see it moving some units. At $99, I imagine it will fly off the shelves.
You know what could have been a smart idea with this... make the console so that if you buy games from the store you get a % discount on them, make it something decent enough like 10% off games and you'll even get people who already own an xbox1 to pick up another in the hopes of saving a few quid on digital games.
Think Nintendo did something similar with the WiiU 32GB edition for the first year for the buyers of it if I recall, could be somewhat successful?
What they should have done is point out the value proposition. Save money on discs, give us something else. Make the all digital version launch with an SSD only. There's no positive angle to this product.
I suppose it's not a suprise that it's only at select retails being that it won't be selling any retail games for those retailers.
So considering the base console is constantly being sold for 199 then this will be a regular 149 right?
They are certainly earning less money than on X1S due to the driver not costing 50 USD (even if it reads 4K Disc).
And from the constant news and rumors this SKU was expected, now let's see how much it will impact sales.
Cool! Thanks for helping us gamers who prefers physical games, MS:)
What I like about PR bullshit talk is also in this case: MS: "At Xbox, we’re inspired by gamers – they’re at the center of everything we do. We’re constantly listening to your feedback" and yet, everybody is either on the internet in disbelief or in disgust about their ...offer.
Isnt digital versions of games more expensive still for the most part?
Launch at MSRP (while some stores go a little lower), stay longer on MSRP (while regular stores will discount it less than 6 months after launch), can't trade or buy used. But there is a good number of people (here included) that say they are full digital for over 10 years.
Should be $149 at the absolute most, If they want people to go digital they should be willing to take a loss upfront and rake it back in with higher digital margins very fast.
It's an option at least, but not a good deal money wise. Should be 2-3TB, and much cheaper. At least the 3 games its bundled with are good, and will most likely have a month of live and gamepass in the box.
Who gave this thing the green light? When I first heard the rumors I thought it was a late April Fools joke making the rounds. This console and price point make no sense.
I think Microsoft is testing market to see if people accept all digital console. This might decide if next gen Xbox will be all digital or still have disc drive.
What I like about PR bullshit talk is also in this case: MS: "At Xbox, we’re inspired by gamers – they’re at the center of everything we do. We’re constantly listening to your feedback" and yet, everybody is either on the internet in disbelief or in disgust about their ...offer.
This just makes the original X1S even more enticing.
This could be indicative of a problem with digital only systems - retailers need a large margin on the hardware, or they won't sell it. It would be in nobody's interest (except MS) to sell an all digital console at normal console margins (a few dollars of retail margin). So, they may have to build in an additional $50 or so that can go to the retailer.
What they should have done is point out the value proposition. Save money on discs, give us something else. Make the all digital version launch with an SSD only. There's no positive angle to this product.
There are 3 games included with the All Digital Edition. Maybe that's the reason for the price.
These are 1st party games, I don't think it cost MS much to offer them.
It doesn't cost MS much, but for the consumer it has a value of $ 80 if you buy these 3 games new (at Amazon).
Still doesn't make sense to buy this over the original.
I just started thinking where would people even buy this digital model? I mean if you're the type of person that goes to the store to buy physical games, why would you want a digital only console? Is this gonna be at Walmart next to physical games? Frankly, regardless of how much I like MS I can't defend this decision. I mean atleast give people some incentive to go this route and they aren't doing it.
They are promissing to be aways 50 USD cheaper (and if they don't honor it they can certainly be sued), so we will see 149 Discless all around. This 249 is MSRP to compare to the regular MSRP that no one follows anymore.
They are promissing to be aways 50 USD cheaper (and if they don't honor it they can certainly be sued), so we will see 149 Discless all around. This 249 is MSRP to compare to the regular MSRP that no one follows anymore.
Hah! Forget about the PS5, this reveal is underwhelming period. Its just an X1S without a disc drive and still expensive. Big deal!
Sony could do better than this announcement by literally doing nothing. This system screams that ms still is gunning for that original Xbox 1 idea where the gamer owns nothing that they can't have complete control over.
If anything for me this would put me off the Xbox 2 as well as this thing
